are the names of the aspects that
are manifested by the Supreme; we must not separate them so much as to
lose sight of the underlying unity. For remember how, when a worshipper
of Vishnu had a feeling in his heart against a worshipper of
Mahadeva, as he bowed before the image of Hari, the face of the image
divided itself in half, and Shiva or Hara appeared on one side and
Vishnu or Hari appeared on the other, and the two, smiling as one
face on the bigoted worshipper, told him that Mahadeva and Vishnu
were but one. But in Their functions a division arises; They manifest
along different lines, as it were, in the kosmos and for the helping of
man; not for Him but for us, do these lines of apparent separateness
arise.

Looking thus at it, we shall be able to find the answer to our question,
not only who is the source of Avataras, but why Vishnu is the
source. And it is here that I come to the unfamiliar part where I shall
have to ask for your special attention as regards the building of the
universe. Now I am using the word "universe," in the sense of our solar
system. There are many other systems, each of them complete in itself,
and, therefore, rightly spoken of as a kosmos, a universe. But each of
these systems in its turn is part of a mightier system, and our sun, the
centre of our own system, though it be in very truth the manifested
physical body of I'shwara Himself, is not the only sun. If you look
through the vast fields of space, myriads of suns are there, each one
the centre of its own system, of its own universe; and our sun, supreme
to us, is but, as it were, a planet in a vaster system, its orbit curved
round a sun greater than itself. So in turn that sun, round which our
sun is circling, is planet to a yet mightier sun, and each set of
systems in its turn circles round a more central sun, and so on--we know
not how far may stretch the chain that to us is illimitable; for who is
able to plumb the depths and heights of space, or to find a manifested
circumference which takes in all universes! Nay, we say that they are
infinite in number, and that there is no end to the manifestations of
the one Life.

Now that is true physically. Look at the physical universe with the eye
of spirit, and you see in it a picture of the spiritual universe. A
great word was spoken by one of the Masters or Rishis, whom in this
Society we honour and whose teachings we follow. Speaking to one of His
disciples, or pupils, He rebuked